14 Reasons Church Unity Breaks Down

Church Unity has been on my mind again. In fact, the topic came up again in a conversation I had with my mentor last week. We experienced a “split” at my church a few years back and I believe a lack of unity was a leading contributor to the problems at that time.

“I wish we could have a sermon preached once a year based on Jesus’s prayer in John 17,” I said to her. “We need to keep hearing how Jesus prayed for us and how important unity was to Him.”

The link I’ve provided below leads to blog post from Thom Rainer whose site is in my blogroll. I feel compelled to repeat the post from 2015 because unity in the Church universal and in our local congregations is never an out-of-date subject. I realize that I need to keep being reminded how Satan can tear at the fabric of our unity and rip a church family apart.

Unity in the church begins with love.

“By this they will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:34

Here’s the intro to that 2015 blog on The Fruitful Life and the link to Thom’s blog.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Thom Rainer blogs every day about leadership in the church. Many times his topic is meant for the whole body, not just leaders.

That’s the case with this post. I felt compelled to share it, because when we consider our membership in a local church, it should be apparent that in some way, we are all leaders. Jesus meant for us to be examples reflecting Him in the world.

Mr. Rainer has many years of experience in church leadership and assisting churches revitalize and deal with change, something the Church needs today. His posts are always thought-provoking for me. I hope you’ll find this is true for you and that his words will bring answers if needed and most certainly, hope.

Be a blessing to someone today.

Treasures

Let me tell you about my little Bible with the bonded leather cover.

It was one of the first Bibles I purchased for myself when I finally decided to go back to church and get serious about following Christ. Mom might not have approved of my scribblings in the margins or the highlighting and underlining, but this surely has helped me to make this Bible a Treasure.

Obviously, this little Bible has seen a lot of use. In fact, I’ve used it so much and marked it up so much that I’m sometimes stymied to find a passage unless I have this one in front of me. Measuring 6 5/8 inches x 4 3/8 inches, the type is pretty small. That’s okay; I can still read it with my old lady reading glasses.

Treasure-Bible

My “treasure,” which is the subject of today’s blogging photo challenge, was with me in a near-fatal auto accident thirteen years ago next month. It has brown stains from transmission fluid on some of the pages. That’s okay too. A  couple of years following the accident, I decided I’d better have the strap sewn back on by a local tailor before it fell off. It was hanging on by a thread as a result of the beating it took. When I mentioned that feature to a friend she said, “Kind of like you were.” She knew the details of the accident and how blessed I was to be alive.

For this photo, my Bible is open to John chapters 15-17. Chapter 17 is one of my favorite passages in the Bible because Jesus prays for us. To think that Jesus knew he was going to his death and wanted to talk to his Father about us sometimes makes me weep.

Those words are treasures to me.